Update News for August 2025

Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:

 

• • Tiny Font Bug
    
    
  • CQS.EXE is Getting VERY Close
    
    
  • Price Increases in September
    
    
  • Our Coming 43rd Anniversary
    
    
  • Our Current Programming Plans for 2025
    
    

These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin.

Tiny Font Bug

As background, the tiny font bug affects a minority of subscribers when attempting to print Pick 12 spreadsheets (or producing Pick 12 PDF files). On machines with that bug, all other printouts (pdf’s) in our software work as you would expect. The bug ONLY appears with a GOWIN.EXE produced by our language supplier’s newest compiler. The previous compiler, from the same manufacturer, was NOT giving us the problem.

Pick 12 printouts are different from other printouts in our system in that you can make changes to fonts, font sizes, colors, etc. Because Pick 12 spreadsheets are very popular with many subscribers, the demand to offer that level of dynamic editing was high. We invested time and money to permit subscribers to customize their layouts. The option has been in place for many years, and up to this point we would have referred to as bullet proof; that is until now.

When we first released the latest GOWIN.EXE (newest compiler) in the middle of last year, a small minority of customers reported the tiny font bug. Our biggest problem initially was that none of our own computers had the problem, including some computers that have Windows 11. Some of our machines are still Windows 10 (I dread doing the Windows 11 upgrade on those older machines) and we still have machines that run Windows XP.

NOTE:   To run historic copies (Historical Data) of Compulife you must have a Windows 7 (32 bit) or OLDER.

Further, because we still have customers with Windows XP machines (not many) we want to make sure that our new programs continue to run on those as well as Windows 11.

Late in 2025 my son bought a new laptop with Windows 11. I decided to test the new software on that new machine and thankfully it had the tiny font problem. We then looked harder and our programmer (who lives in Canada) found another laptop with the issue and so that gave us two machines “in hand” to test our efforts to find and fix the problem. It is worth noting that both of these laptop are Windows 11 and they are VERY new computer models (not from the same maker).

All of that to say that we have made serious progress on the tiny font bug this past month, and the fix we implemented worked on both of those two machines.

For those interested, there is a compile option in our new compiler related to a thing called DPI. This about DPI from Google AI:

 

• “In Windows 11, DPI (dots per inch) settings control the size of text, apps, and other elements on your 

screen

• . Higher DPI settings make everything appear larger, while lower settings make them appear smaller. You can adjust the DPI scaling level in Windows 11 to customize the 

display

 for optimal viewing comfort. “

You would not think that this would have any impact on printouts but we discovered that on the Windows 11 machines that we have, that when the DPI option in the compiler was changed to one of the six DPI options (one option to not allow DPI) that the tiny font problem went away for our two Windows 11 machines. BINGO! We were pretty sure that we had the answer to our problem and so in July we released a new GOWIN.EXE in the U.S. midmonth update. Once again, that GOWIN.EXE was compiled using the newest version of our language compiler. We then warned everyone in the U.S. midmonth bulletin of what we did and asked them to test.

One subscriber, and so far ONLY one subscriber, contacted us to say they were still having the tiny font problem. Personally, I just can’t imagine that there aren’t more subscribers with the issue and so in August we plan to double down on introducing the new GOWIN.EXE. Here’s how that will work:

 

• First, the old compiled version of GOWIN.EXE is being released in the August monthly update. Very soon after that there will be a midmonth update, for both the U.S. and Canada, that gives you the latest GOWIN.EXE built with the new compiler.

Second, we urge ALL subscribers to produce a Pick 12, and attempt to create a pdf or printout. Take a look and see if it looks normal, or if the text has fonts so tiny that they are impossible to read.

By putting the newest GOWIN.EXE in a midmonth update, any subscriber who has the bug can get the monthly update (again) and NOT get the latest midmonth update. In a pinch, this lets them continue to function normally, however without any of the other changes that may be in the midmonth update.

By doing a broader release we are attempting to find as many computers as possible that have this issue. The more we have, the better our chance of finding out the common thread between them. Even if we continue to have ONLY one customer with the issue we will continue to attempt to discover what it is on that computer that is causing the problem. There will be some software setting on the computer, or some print driver issue, that conflicts with our software.

There will be a REWARD of a FREE year’s subscription to the PC software for the FIRST enterprising subscriber to demonstrate that they have the tiny font bug, and who then discovers and reports what setting on their computer they changed to fix that problem.

If the number of subscribers with the tiny font bug continues to be tiny, the new GOWIN.EXE produced with the newest compiler will be released to ALL subscribers in the September monthly update. The tiny number of subscribers who continue to have a problem will be given a location where then can manually download the previous compiled version of GOWIN.EXE.

While we dislike such a band aid fix, we cannot perpetually spin our wheels in the mud on this. We suspect that we are NOT the only software producer having this issue, and that at some point the manufacturer of our language compiler will make a change to the compiler and some new version of that compiler will suddenly no longer have the problem. As it remains a mystery why our code works fine with the old compiler, and not with the new compiler, a future compiler is likely to solve the problem and that solution will also be a mystery.

CQS.EXE is Getting VERY Close

We had planned to do an early release of the new CQS.EXE to test the tiny font bug but we are now going to delay that while we continue to work to debug and improve CQS.EXE. We prefer to release CQS.EXE when we ourselves are satisfied that we can no longer find anything wrong with it.

With the progress in GOWIN.EXE with the tiny font problem, and with CQS having the same progress on the two machines that we had the tiny font problem with, there is NO reason to do that early release.

Having said that, the new CQS.EXE is ONLY going to be available from the newest compiler. Eventually, after the data overhaul, the GOWIN.EXE will become obsolete and so anyone left with a tiny font issue is going to be stuck. For that reason, we are urging you to test the Pick 12 on all your computers and report to us if you have the tiny font bug. And we further urge anyone with the problem to work with us to find a solution.

Price Increases in September

The following is from the previous two bulletins. In mid-July our invoicing for September renewals was produced using the new prices. These are modest, inflation linked increases (about 2 to 3 percent). You can still obtain the old price if you buy 2 or more years of software and take the multi-year discounts that we offer. As we have to issue a new invoice for those deciding to make a multi-year purchase, we will at the same time let you receive the old price. That option is gone on September 1st.

Here’s what we had to say about the price increases:

As best I can determine, inflation has slowed to about 2.5%. In keeping with that, Compulife is only making a 2.5% increase in prices, focusing on those prices of $200 or more. The Mobile Quoter and the Web Quoter Option prices will NOT be changing this year. Further, our Term4Sale listing prices are NOT changing. The personal use PC software (which includes the Mobile quoter will be going up $5, and the agency software will be going up $10.

Product	New Price (annual)	Old Price
Personal Use PC	220	215
Agency Use PC	390	380
API – 1,200/m	370 *	360
API – 6,000/m	740 **	720
API – 30,000/m	1,110 ***	1,080
Internet Engine	1,530 ***	1,495
Batch Analyzer	1,985 ***	1,940
Historical Disk	120 ***	115

 

• • *     also requires subscription to Compulife Mobile ($110 per year)

 

• • **   also requires subscription to Compulife Personal Use PC Version ($220 per year)

 

• *** also requires subscription to Compulife Agency Use PC Version ($390 per year)

Once again, there will be NO increase in Term4sale listing prices this year.

I would encourage you to LOCK in the old prices by pre-paying, which will lock in the old price and let you take multi-year discounts.

Our Coming 43rd Anniversary

In October Compulife will be celebrating our 43rd anniversary. To celebrate we are temporarily offering a new multiple year discount. Until October 1st, you can obtain a 4 year subscription for 30% off the annual price times 4. Our normal discounts are 10% for 2 years, and 20% for 3 years. Once again, until October 1st we will be giving you the opportunity to pay 4 years in advance and take a 30% discount on the total annual subscription price.

EXAMPLE:   If you are buying a personal use subscription to Compulife, that means you can pay $215 times 4, and take 30% off of that. $215 X 4 – 30% = $860 – $258 = $602 (for an average price of $150.50 per year).

You will want to act on this before September 1st as the price increases take affect then.

Therefore, paying in advance lets you take advantage of the current price and lock it in for the 2, 3 or 4 years, and also take a multi-year discount on that current price.

You can add those 4 years to your current subscription expiry data, whatever that is.

Our Current Programming Plans for 2025

The following is the current order for new work that we will be doing in 2025:

 

• • Introduction of New PC Version: CQS.EXE.

 

• • Overhaul Of Current Product Data Files.

 

• Introduction of Compulife Mobile Plus (with Pick 12).

Anyone with questions about any of these upcoming projects can call Bob Barney to discuss:

 

Please don’t email me essay questions; just call. If I’m not in, email me your phone number, I’ll call you.

These planned objectives will easily consume our programming time during the balance of this year and throughout 2025. The good news is that once the product data files have been converted, and we have introduced the new CQS.EXE and upgraded our internet engine to use the new data files, Compulife will be turning its full attention to our web based, Compulife Mobile software. The long term goal is to have a web based product that does everything our PC based software does.